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Topic: Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt (Read 1514271 times)

The discussion about ID's reminded me of a brain-hurty exchange a while back. I'd lost my driver's licence, so I was using my passport as ID for a couple days. I have both the full book passport and the passport card, since at the time I was travelling back and forth between the US and Canada by car quite frequently, and the cards make it much easier at the border crossing. So, I go up to a gas station clerk to buy cigarettes and he asks for ID, and I promptly handed him the passport card. What followed was a 10 minute debate as to whether or not this card was valid ID. You would think that in a town 90 minutes away from the Canadian border, people would be more knowledgeable about various foreign and federal ID's, but apparently not.

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Some people lift weights. I lift measures. It's a far more esoteric workout. - (Quoted from a personal friend)

Maybe I am missing something. I thought this through a few times and still can't figure out why the other person just couldn't get it. The only conclusion to which I can come is that I'm missing something.

Location A: Where I'm standing with a line of people, outdoorsLocation B: About 100 yards from Location A, indoors

It was very cold outside today, so to keep people from having to wait outside in the cold for too long, I was calling a set number of people at a time to come from Location B to Location A. My line was moving along smoothly, and at no point was there no one in line. During the course of things, one of the people complained that he had been waiting in Location B for so long and that he was about ready to lose it because of that. When the person behind the counter asked him why he had been waiting in Location B for so long before coming to Location A, I explained that I was trying to keep people out of the cold so was only calling so many at a time. After the last person in line left, the person behind the counter started to argue with me.

I told her that it didn't matter where they waited, Location A or Location B, they were still waiting through however many people were in front of them. I even tried doing the math for her. If 30 people take 2 minutes, that's an hour. It doesn't matter if they're waiting in Location A (outside where it's cold) or Location B (inside where it's warm), it will still take an hour. Location doesn't change time. I could see her argument if there were big gaps between the groups, but there was never nobody in line. Am I missing something?

Maybe I am missing something. I thought this through a few times and still can't figure out why the other person just couldn't get it. The only conclusion to which I can come is that I'm missing something.

Location A: Where I'm standing with a line of people, outdoorsLocation B: About 100 yards from Location A, indoors

It was very cold outside today, so to keep people from having to wait outside in the cold for too long, I was calling a set number of people at a time to come from Location B to Location A. My line was moving along smoothly, and at no point was there no one in line. During the course of things, one of the people complained that he had been waiting in Location B for so long and that he was about ready to lose it because of that. When the person behind the counter asked him why he had been waiting in Location B for so long before coming to Location A, I explained that I was trying to keep people out of the cold so was only calling so many at a time. After the last person in line left, the person behind the counter started to argue with me.

I told her that it didn't matter where they waited, Location A or Location B, they were still waiting through however many people were in front of them. I even tried doing the math for her. If 30 people take 2 minutes, that's an hour. It doesn't matter if they're waiting in Location A (outside where it's cold) or Location B (inside where it's warm), it will still take an hour. Location doesn't change time. I could see her argument if there were big gaps between the groups, but there was never nobody in line. Am I missing something?

Everything he did (ID verification) sounds like the typical exchange when someone who looks underage attempts to buy cigarettes/alcohol. You're the one who didn't handle the transaction properly.

Your issues with the way he asked you and the fact that he asked for address rather than date of birth come across as trying to justify your odd behaviour.

I get the feeling that Nikko-chan wasn't very experienced in purchasing cigarettes and really could not have known the normal protocol involved in IDing someone. I think she can be forgiven for feeling a little creeped out by this guy. I know he had to ask to keep his place of business from losing their license for selling to someone underage, but he did word it kind of peculiarly and we also don't have the benefit of seeing his facial expression, body posture and tone of voice. Those things might have made a difference in her perception of the situation too.

I have actually been buying cigarettes since I was eighteen. Just not at this particular place. Also, I don't really see how he could not tell it wasn't me on that ID. I mean, my hair is different, but in the picture it is pulled back in a ponytail so you can see my face clearly, and I still have the same glasses. I have been ID'd before, but it usually involves people looking at the ID in disbelief, back up at me, and I nod and say "yeah I know, I don't look my age. But I am 24" And they usually leave it at that because they see it is me on the ID. The way this guy reacted... it was like I was being interrogated.

I sometimes were contacts. When I was in college, a local grocery store would take personal checks, with ID. One normal day, I presented my ID and the clerk took the longest time l.o.o.k.i.n.g. at me.

She asked why I had glasses on me in person, but not in the photo. I had to remove my glasses so she could "see" it was me.

(note, have not changed hair color ever, and style and length had not varied. It was simply the glasses/contacts thing that was bothering her!)

Made me think about getting a blonde wig and wearing heels to make me really tall, and head off to the grocery store to see how confused the clerk would be then!

(I never did)

This actually happens to me quite often, where I am asked to take off my glasses to match my face to my ID.

Then there was the time I was buying cigarettes at age 22. The clerk skeptically asked for my ID (I say skeptically because his tone of voice suggested that he suspected I didn't think he would ask for it) so I handed it over. "Wow," he said, "I thought you were like 14 or 15." I asked him why simply because I was curious. "Well, your mohawk." This happened a few more times over the course of the next few months, all with different people explaining it was my mohawk. That was when I came to the conclusion that many people thought any self respecting 22 year old woman wouldn't have a mohawk

Client insists I put in a reset button, to reset a search page back to blank. Nice idea, except there is already a reset button 5cm to the left of the main Search button on the webpage. No no, they don't use that one, but don't take it away or move it, just put another Reset button that does exactly the same thing, but is now 10cm away from the Search button, at the top of the page.

So you want me to duplicate the function of the button, but at twice the mouse scrolling distance? Ummm... okay....

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It's best to love your family as you would a Siberian Tiger - from a distance, preferably separated by bars . -- Pearls Before Swine (16-May-2009)

I sometimes were contacts. When I was in college, a local grocery store would take personal checks, with ID. One normal day, I presented my ID and the clerk took the longest time l.o.o.k.i.n.g. at me.

She asked why I had glasses on me in person, but not in the photo. I had to remove my glasses so she could "see" it was me.

(note, have not changed hair color ever, and style and length had not varied. It was simply the glasses/contacts thing that was bothering her!)

Made me think about getting a blonde wig and wearing heels to make me really tall, and head off to the grocery store to see how confused the clerk would be then!

(I never did)

This actually happens to me quite often, where I am asked to take off my glasses to match my face to my ID.

Then there was the time I was buying cigarettes at age 22. The clerk skeptically asked for my ID (I say skeptically because his tone of voice suggested that he suspected I didn't think he would ask for it) so I handed it over. "Wow," he said, "I thought you were like 14 or 15." I asked him why simply because I was curious. "Well, your mohawk." This happened a few more times over the course of the next few months, all with different people explaining it was my mohawk. That was when I came to the conclusion that many people thought any self respecting 22 year old woman wouldn't have a mohawk

I once had a bouncer at a bar ask me to smile because I was smiling in my driver's license photo. He also asked another friend to take off his glasses because he wasn't wearing them in his DL photos.

It was also Halloween in Georgetown so things were absolutely nutty and being a college town they needed to be extra vigilant to not let any under-age college kids in. So not super brain hurty but definitely threw me off for a minute.

I had a couple of exchanges when DH and I went out to dinner on Saturday that I found really puzzling.

First, for a variety of reasons, a lot of the people who work as waitstaff where I live are in their late teens or early 20s. I am 27, and I'm pretty sure I look it.

At one point, I think when the waitress we had was getting me some lime for my diet coke, she said, "here you go, sweetie." It hurt my brain a little because, a) that's kind of a condescending way to address anyone who is older than about 5, and b) I'm almost positive that she was one of those servers in her early 20s. I know I don't look like a teenager, so at the very least, we were peers.

The other thing that I found really puzzling is that she asked my husband and I if we wanted separate checks or just one at the end of the meal. I can understand not wanting to assume anything about us, and I wouldn't expect her to have noticed that we were both wearing wedding rings, but it was kind of odd. We basically never get that question, because we look like a couple when we eat out. Even when we do get asked about the check, it's usually phrased more like, "Is this all one check?" rather than, "Do you want separate checks or is it together?"

It's a subtle thing, but it just reinforced the idea that she really seemed to think we were much younger than we were. Which hurt my brain because she was probably a good 5 years younger than me and a good 10 years younger than my husband!

I sometimes were contacts. When I was in college, a local grocery store would take personal checks, with ID. One normal day, I presented my ID and the clerk took the longest time l.o.o.k.i.n.g. at me.

She asked why I had glasses on me in person, but not in the photo. I had to remove my glasses so she could "see" it was me.

(note, have not changed hair color ever, and style and length had not varied. It was simply the glasses/contacts thing that was bothering her!)

Made me think about getting a blonde wig and wearing heels to make me really tall, and head off to the grocery store to see how confused the clerk would be then!

(I never did)

This actually happens to me quite often, where I am asked to take off my glasses to match my face to my ID.

Then there was the time I was buying cigarettes at age 22. The clerk skeptically asked for my ID (I say skeptically because his tone of voice suggested that he suspected I didn't think he would ask for it) so I handed it over. "Wow," he said, "I thought you were like 14 or 15." I asked him why simply because I was curious. "Well, your mohawk." This happened a few more times over the course of the next few months, all with different people explaining it was my mohawk. That was when I came to the conclusion that many people thought any self respecting 22 year old woman wouldn't have a mohawk

I once had a bouncer at a bar ask me to smile because I was smiling in my driver's license photo. He also asked another friend to take off his glasses because he wasn't wearing them in his DL photos.

It was also Halloween in Georgetown so things were absolutely nutty and being a college town they needed to be extra vigilant to not let any under-age college kids in. So not super brain hurty but definitely threw me off for a minute.

I kept wondering whether I was going to get a grilling, or to have to take off my wig, when I rocked up to a liquor counter in late October dressed as Bellatrix Lestrange. Especially as my ID shows me as dark blonde. But I didn't even get any weird looks. The guy had probably seen a lot of costumes that night.

Baby Girl has lots of lovely toys, yet she is obsessed with her bottle lid. Not the bottle with the yummy milk in it. She gets angry if the lid is on the bottle and once separate, will throw the bottle away and lavish love on the lid(i.e drool on it). she will do the most amazing contortions to get to the lid as well.

Makes my brain hurt.

She also loves (giggles her baby brain out) mirrors but she's beautiful so I understand that.

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“For too long, we've assumed that there is a single template for human nature, which is why we diagnose most deviations as disorders. But the reality is that there are many different kinds of minds. And that's a very good thing.” - Jonah Lehrer

You were being interrogated. I'd just write it off to not being on the same page as the clerk.

Dindrane wrote:

"At one point, I think when the waitress we had was getting me some lime for my diet coke, she said, "here you go, sweetie." It hurt my brain a little because, a) that's kind of a condescending way to address anyone who is older than about 5, and b) I'm almost positive that she was one of those servers in her early 20s. I know I don't look like a teenager, so at the very least, we were peers."

This alone wouldn't catch me by surprise if I was anywhere near the southern U.S., so I'll guess that she was from that area and it's just a cutural thing. Getting called "sweetie" and "hon" and "sugar" by all and sundry is par for the course where I lived.

The glasses/contacts thing reminded me of this. When I was 16, I switched from glasses (which I had worn most of my life) to contacts. For the next couple of weeks I kept getting variations of this comment. "You look different. Did you get your hair cut?"

DH and I recently bought a new (to us!) second-hand car. This is fairly significant because since moving to our current city 4 years ago we've lived car-free, using bicycles and public transport. It's been fun, but we made the lifestyle choice that we want to have a vehicle again. The car we got is fantastic - very small and compact for city use, fairly economical to run, but also has a powerful engine so suits DH's mechanically minded sensibilities.

DH took the new car around to show my brother and sister-in-law. My SIL simply could not get her head around why we'd bought such a small car. "That trunk is so tiny, how will you fit your groceries in it?" was just one of the many concerns she kept expressing.

She didn't seem to understand that we've managed just fine for 4 years with no car, and that ANY car is going to significantly improve the convenience of shopping etc! Nothing DH said could convince her that the car is exactly what we want and will make our lives much better! (Incidentally, the grocery store is less than 5 minutes WALK from our house. We either walk down or if we need a big shop then we order online and get free delivery. Really the car makes little difference to that!) Sure, if we want to buy a giant piece of furniture or similar then we'd probably have trouble transporting it, but that applies to most cars! We've since been around in circles a few times with SIL, but she still doesn't seem to get it. Our lifestyles are just very different, clearly! We are having a baby in the new year which is potentially impacting on her perspective, but again, having a car can only make things easier for that, we don't need to go from no car to a giant people mover just because of a new baby!!! We have no need or desire to own one of those gigantic tank-sized strollers anyway, so the fact I can't fit one in the car won't be an issue... there really is more than enough room for the baby and any other paraphenalia - it's not as if we got a 2 seater sports car!

I had a similar conversation with my MIL about our car right after our youngest child was born.

Prior to YDD's birth, any time my little 3 person family and the ILs went out somewhere, we'd just take one car. But YDD's birth changed that, as our 5-seater car now had 4 of those 5 seats occupied. MIL complained bitterly about what a "horrible situation" (yes, she used those exact words.) the whole thing was. Our car seats were too big. Our backseat was too small. Blah blah blah. She still complains about it, some 5 years later.

Here's where my brain hurts and she just can't understand. Even if our car seats weren't behemoths* and our car had a roomier backseat, we still only have 5 seats and 6 people. I'm not sure what she wants us to do about it, other than go out and buy a minivan. Which we aren't going to do.

*and we've graduated to boosters, which take up much less room. Guess what! Still only 5 seats...